Censorship absolutism: A contrarian position

[Paul Neff]

David Burt wrote:
>With regards to blocking being selection vs. censorship, I really think
>you could look at it either way.
>
>It is somewhat like taking books off the shelf, in that you're removing
>something patrons at some point had access to.
>
>However, it's also somewhat like not selecting something, in that you're
>choosing not to allow something to come in to your library.

It's also like searching the knapsacks of library patrons as they come
through the door, since it prevents patrons from choosing to access a
resource that may be objectionable.  To make yet another analogy: while most
public libraries wouldn't circulate Hustler magazine, few would prevent a
patron from carrying in his or her own copy and reading it quietly in a
corner.  Now if that patron were to read it aloud in the children's area,
that would be another matter, but the problem would have to do with patron
behavior, not selection.  The analogy is that patrons who choose to view
possibly objectionable Web pages not selected by the library are analogous
to patrons who bring their own magazines into the library to read, perhaps
because the light is better.  Obviously, patrons who encounter objectionable
resources accidentally fall outside this analogy.  The point is that the
questions of what it is appropriate for the library to collect and what is
appropriate for patrons to read in the library are two different things.  

My experience has been that most libraries actively developing "collections"
of Internet resources (e.g. developing pages of links, bookmarks,
bibliographies, etc. of Web sites) also provide workstations for public
Internet access, which in effect provide patrons with the means to
circumvent the library's efforts and find what they want on their own, which
is what the vast majority of them do.  In that context, I would hate to
implement filtering software that would in any way discourage the
well-intentioned patron (meaning a patron not breaking the law or otherwise
creating a behavior problem within the library) from viewing whatever
materials he or she might want to view. 
   

Paul Neff
Manager, Technology Services :: Arlington Heights Memorial Library
pneff at nslsilus.org